Page:Poems and ballads (IA balladspoems00swinrich).pdf/28

 Between the balanced hands of death and birth, Even as they held the new-born shape of earth When first life trembled in her limbs and smiled, Here hope might think to find what hope were worth.

Past Hades, past Elysium, past the long Slow smooth strong lapse of Lethe—past the toil Wherein all souls are taken as a spoil, The Stygian web of waters—if your song Be quenched not, O our brethren, but be strong As ere ye too shook off our temporal coil;

If yet these twain survive your worldly breath, Joy trampling sorrow, life devouring death, If perfect life possess your life all through And like your words your souls be deathless too, To-night, of all whom night encompasseth, My soul would commune with one soul of you.